Contact paper art

This idea for contact paper art is the result of my 5-year-old’s love of scissors. She sat listening to an audio book last week, all the while cutting away at a pack of drinking straws with her scissors. I’m not quite sure what it is about snipping she finds so appealing but she loves it at the moment and will cut paper, playdough, card, whatever. Not wanting to put a stop to her current craze, but also not wanting to see all our art supplies vanish into pieces quite so quickly, we gathered up all the drinking straw remnants to use for some contact paper art.

Contact paper art

We decided to make some frames from card and drew out some irregular shapes.

Once the frames were cut out we placed them onto contact paper (which you might also know as sticky backed plastic).

Then it was time to fill in our gallery with the drinking straws.

Putting the contact paper frames up in the window, with the light shining through, creates a beautiful effect. With the bowl of drinking straws placed on the window ledge it’s an invitation for whoever is passing to add a few pieces. The contact paper is strong enough to hold the straws in place, but it’s very easy to peel them off, move them around and try different arrangements.

You can fill in the whole frame, make faces, create a stained glass effect, make stripes, patchwork, whatever you like. Have you ever tried contact paper art with your kids?

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